Yphise
ISO 9001-certified quotations of software productsYphise
Software Product Assessment
Independent quotations of software products
Strategic Performance
Management (SPM)
EXECUTIVE volume
FOREWORD ... 3 EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW MARKET SEGMENT ... 4 YPHISE SHORTLIST ... 8Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (Cognos) Business Objects EPM (Business Objects) Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion / Oracle)
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS)
YPHISE RANKING ... 15
APPENDIX
ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW ... 19 1. Defining the best strategies to meet the objectives
2. Improving the collaboration and efficiency of business users 3. Monitoring the business performance
4. Controlling and improving the business strategy
Yphise is committed to providing IT Executives and Managers with the best independent research on methods and solutions to optimize IT cost, value and risk. Yphise research results from an open and operational framework of practices aimed at measuring and improving IT efficiency according to the requirements of large companies
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Yphise conducts two exclusive ongoing research programs : 1/ Yphise Software Assessment, 2/ YBRM (Yphise Business Risk Management).
1/ Yphise Software Assessment
Yphise identifies and certifies the software products that allow large companies to increase the value of their information systems while optimizing the costs and managing the risks. Yphise covers all areas of interest to develop, operate, maintain and secure the applications to compete. Yphise has assessed 150 software products each year since 1985. Each assessment is ISO 9001:2000-certified in order to guarantee independence and to focus on key issues for large companies.
2/ YBRM (Yphise Business Risk Management)
YBRM provides IT Executives and Managers with an open framework of operational best practices aimed at optimizing IT cost, value and risk. It covers all IT processes in order to guarantee effective operational management. YBRM is a pragmatic approach. It includes a scoring model for easy periodical self-assessment. It leads to immediate improvement of each IT process through use of the released best practices. YBRM also provides roadmap for optimizing IT cost, value and risk as required by large companies.
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3 ©Yphise
F
OREWORD
The EXECUTIVE volume summarizes the results of independent research conducted by Yphise on the assessed market segment.
This market segment has been selected under the Yphise ongoing research program, which identifies the software products that represent a valuable investment for large companies.
This volume outlines Yphise opinion on the value of the products.
It shortlists the products of interest, according to expected benefits by IT Executives.
It scores the shortlisted products after their in-depth ISO 9001-certified assessment by Yphise. The Yphise list of requirements includes several hundred control criteria (REQUIREMENTS volume). The charts in this volume aggregate the detailed results for each product (DETAILED ASSESSMENT volume). The REQUIREMENTS and DETAILED ASSESSMENT volumes are available at <www.yphise.com>.
(See the YPHISE SOFTWARE ASSESSMENT chapter.)
All EXECUTIVE volumes produced are available at <www.yphise.com> under the EXECUTIVE License.
The EXECUTIVE License provides IT Executives, software vendors and service providers with an accurate understanding of the best products on the market, according to the requirements of large companies.
M
ARKET
S
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Strategic Performance Management (SPM) solutions help assess enterprise performance according to strategic objectives. SPM solutions help define the financial and nonfinancial objectives and the best strategies to meet them. Strategies include all actions to be implemented in order to meet the objectives.
SPM solutions help executives and managers define, implement and monitor their strategies. They help identify and plan sub-objectives, projects and tasks pertaining to the strategy according to resources. They help communicate the strategy to the whole company. They deliver scorecards or dashboards in order to control strategy implementation and progress toward objectives.
Benefits for the business
Improving the performance by optimizing the implementation of strategies
Companies must define objectives in order to improve their performance, according to internal elements (resources) or external elements (competitors, marketplace). Strategies include all actions to be implemented in order to meet the objectives. Strategies are defined at any level in the company; each branch, department and individual must meet the objectives and set up appropriate strategies.
SPM solutions are essential today because competition accelerates business. Managing and implementing the actions required to meet objectives is necessary at all levels in the company. Strategy management is no longer the prerogative of top executives, as it was in the past.
Strategy management challenges include how to involve all concerned collaborators. Collaborators must understand the corporate strategy finality and their own individual contribution to this strategy. This is extremely difficult to achieve. Collaborators may not be aware of the objectives and strategies of their own company. SPM solutions improve view of strategy. They help individual collaborators understand their objectives and contribution to the corporate strategy and deadlines.
Another challenge of strategy implementation is scheduling. Objectives should always include deadlines. Time management is difficult. The importance of the scheduling must not be underestimated. SPM solutions help manage time, duration and deadlines. They monitor the strategies, then reevaluate and modify these strategies according to progress made toward meeting the objectives.
Optimizing the resource allocation
Companies must define the best strategies according to planning and budgets. Strategy definition must optimize resources. It is necessary to understand where time as well as financial and human resources should be allocated. SPM solutions help define the best strategies according to available resources. They help evaluate the
5 ©Yphise optimal strategy that will require the least time and resources to implement. They also help plan and budget for strategies.
Benefits for the IT processes
Architecture
The architecture process must guarantee that the IS architecture is in line with the business strategy and business requirements. It must guarantee the functional and technical flexibility of the IS architecture that must be kept in order to sustain this alignment over time. It is also aimed at organizing the information system in order to guarantee data integrity.
SPM solutions guarantee information consistency and sharing between the various users concerned. They guarantee the data quality for decision analysis. They provide end-to-end management of the strategic data population process—from extraction to business intelligence indicators. Some solutions also embed master data management (MDM) capabilities. They provide a single reference database for the data population of the various applications.
SPM solutions optimize the data architecture. They improve the data quality and reliability. They provide an essential benefit, compared to an association of various heterogeneous products.
Data publishing
The data publishing process must guarantee the data publishing and propagation from business intelligence systems (datamarts, data warehouses) or collaborative systems (Intranet, document management systems).
SPM solutions provide dashboards and indicators in order to monitor business performance according to objectives. They retrieve data from various sources and formats in order to build the indicators. They include ETL products or connectors in order to extract, transform and load the required data. The SPM solutions control and track the data origin. They monitor the quality of the integrated data. They also make it possible to correlate, reconcile and support various calculations involving the retrieved data, before integrating the data.
SPM solutions facilitate the data integration from the various sources of the information system. They guarantee the quality of the integrated data. They optimize the management of the data retrieved in the key decision indicators.
Improvement strategies
The improvement strategy process includes performance assessment as well as identification of any useful improvement that requires implementation.
SPM solutions help optimize IT performance. They make it possible to identify IT objectives according to the company’s strategic objectives. They help understand how
the IT contributes to company performance. They identify indicators resulting from IT activities and monitor the cost or duration of IT objectives, projects or tasks.
SPM solutions contribute to improving the IT management.
Maintenance
The maintenance process guarantees the definition of scope-limited changes. These changes must bring added value to the business, quickly and at low cost. A key challenge of maintenance is the guarantee of non-regression of existing information when budgets and time frames are tight.
Integrated SPM solutions avoid the need for maintenance induced by point-to-point interfaces. The out-of-the-box functions of SPM solutions reduce maintenance associated with changing the strategies, dashboards and indicators. SPM solutions also reduce the maintenance to be carried out by the IT department. Some changes can be brought directly by the business users. SPM solutions provide useful features aimed at helping the business users define their own indicators and dashboards.
SPM Solutions limit data-processing maintenance. Management of a unified solution reduces interface maintenance. The definition of business user-oriented functions reduces intervention by IT teams.
Product and infrastructure management
The product and infrastructure management process guarantees the expertise and knowledge required to manage and support the various products used in a company, i.e. hardware or software, middleware, software packages or applications.
SPM solutions are integrated and unified solutions or move in that direction. The architecture and integration of the various main features of the solutions (e.g. ETL, dashboarding, planning) are simplified. The modular architecture of integrated SPM solutions improves flexibility and facilitates installation of these solutions. Having a single solution also facilitates deployment. The expertise required is reduced, and license management is facilitated. SPM solutions also provide shared administration and support functions.
SPM solutions simplify product management. They provide a single solution and avoid the need for multiple products (e.g. Excel, ETL, database) in order to achieve the expected benefits.
Security
The security process guarantees the meeting of confidentiality objectives and the providing of robustness against fraud.
SPM solutions retrieve data from various sources in order to build the indicators. They manage the security policies and the access control to data. They define and control the authorization required to access the indicators and to drill down to detailed
7 ©Yphise information. SPM solutions also control and monitor the various user operations related to the data. They track the data origin or modification. SPM solutions help understand how, why and by whom data is used.
SPM solutions optimize the data protection and user authentication. They improve the monitoring of data integrity.
Y
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S
HORTLIST
Positioning of the market segment
The evaluated market segment is a specific one, with a precise positioning and list of software products. To avoid confusion, we differentiate it from the following list of market segments. A product belonging to one of these market segments is inappropriate for attaining the expected benefits.
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) solutions
BAM solutions provide business operators with a real-time view of the business activity status and key performance indicators. They issue alerts when any activity is blocked or delayed. They detect unusual business situations, risks and opportunities. They do not manage the overall objectives and strategy. They focus on operational management, not on strategic management.
SPM solutions help monitor the business activity within a specific scope. They help control and monitor the objectives and strategies. SPM solutions manage indicators used to evaluate business performance according to company objectives. They are not aimed at monitoring all the business activities of the company.
E.g. BusinessBridge (Systar), OpenView Business Process Insight (HP), Optimize (webMethods), TIBCO Business Factors (TIBCO).
Business Intelligence (BI) solutions
BI solutions help managers, business operators or analysts monitor and understand business activity for the purpose of decision making. They focus on providing user-friendly functions for querying and reporting the data in datamarts, data warehouses or operational databases.
BI solutions help prepare reports and define dashboards. They do not manage strategic and operational objectives. They do not define and plan strategies. They do not manage the relationship between decision-making information and objectives. SPM solutions go beyond BI solutions. They manage indicators and dashboards, but they also manage strategies over time. They simulate and forecast trends.
E.g. BusinessObjects (BusinessObjects), Cognos BI (Cognos), Hyperion BI+,SAS Business Intelligence (SAS Institute).
Data Integration Services (DIS) solutions
DIS solutions define and manage data services. Data services define the operations applied to data. They can be released as Web services. The operations relate to management of data quality. They include four dimensions: data integration, data improvement (cleansing, enrichment, standardization), matching management
9 ©Yphise (comparison, consolidation) and data transformation into services. These data services are used by operational or business intelligence systems. They are updated on a near real-time basis.
An SPM solution can rely on a DIS solution to populate its data. DIS solutions are a middleware layer useful for SPM. However, they do not manage objectives and strategies. DIS solutions help monitor the quality of the data integrated into SPM solutions. SPM solutions focus on the meaning and use of data, rather than on the retrieval of data from various data sources or on the quality management of data. E.g. Business Objects EIM (Business Objects), IBM Information Server (IBM), Informatica PowerCenter Platform (Informatica), SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server (SAS).
Data Mining (DMI) solutions
DMI solutions provide analysts with algorithms, models and other mathematical techniques for discovering the patterns within huge databases. They focus on highlighting the correlations, trends or clusters in the data. They are used by analysts in order to understand complex realities and to prepare decision making.
SPM solutions include predictive analytics functions for a specific scope. They help understand the impact of decision making. SPM solutions help deduce future trends or behaviors from past information. They help conduct simulations.
E.g. SAS Enterprise Miner & SAS Text Miner (SAS), Clementine (SPSS).
ETL (Extract-Transform-Load ) solutions
ETL solutions help connect to heterogeneous data sources (structured or unstructured), extract the needed data and, after transformation, write the data in the target databases or files. They provide connectors for commercial DBMS and business applications.
ETL solutions can be useful for populating SPM data from various data sources within the company. The majority of SPM solutions include ETL solutions. They focus more on the data meaning and use than on the retrieval of data from data sources.
E.g. Data Integrator (Business Objects), Enterprise ETL Server (SAS Institute), PowerCenter (Informatica), WebSphere DataStage (IBM).
Master Data Management (MDM) solutions
MDM solutions provide the enterprise with unified management of reference data defined within various applications (e.g. list of customers, nomenclature of products). MDM solutions provide federation and reconciliation functions. They provide an up-to-date single reference for critical data.
MDM solutions can be useful for populating SPM data. SPM solutions focus more on data meaning and use than on data building.
E.g. Crossvision Master Data Management (Software AG), IBM Master Data Management (IBM), Hyperion MDM (Hyperion), Teradata Master Data Management (Teradata).
Metadata Management (MM) solutions
MM solutions manage metadata, i.e. data describing other data across information systems. Metadata describes how, when and by whom a set of data was collected and how the data was formatted. MM solutions provide connectors to access the various data sources in order to retrieve information on the data. This information is centralized and stored in a repository. Access to this information is facilitated by interfaces that help understand the data building process (sources, transformation steps and use).
MM solutions do not focus on strategy management or on definition of dashboards or indicators. It can be useful for associating an SPM solution to a MM solution in order to identify and track the data used in the SPM solution.
E.g. WebSphere Metadata Server (IBM), Rochade (ASG), SAS Metadata Server (SAS Institute) and Metadata Manager (Informatica).
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions
Project portfolio management (PPM) allow companies to align IT projects on their business strategy or priority. PPM is an outstanding process for managing an information system according to IT governance requirements. It is essential for optimizing the value, cost and risk of an information system according to the company strategy. PPM guarantees effective selection of projects according to the company strategy. It centralizes and manages all requests. These requests can be compared, prioritized and planned according to cost, value or risk. PPM helps executives monitor project progress, manage issues, assess investment performance and control strategy implementation.
The functions provided by PPM solutions are quite similar to those of SPM solutions. However, SPM solutions focus on the definition of strategic or business objectives. They help define and manage the best strategy according to objectives. PPM solutions focus on the definition and monitoring of projects. It can be useful to associate an SPM solution to a PPM one in order to manage the projects defined in the SPM solution. E.g. Changepoint (Compuware), Clarity (Niku / Computer Associates), Planview Portfolio Management (Planview), Rational Portfolio Manager (IBM Rational).
11 © Yphise The shortlist for the evaluated market segment
Each product shortlisted by Yphise contributes to the definition, communication and monitoring of the strategies. They help identify the best strategies to implement according to corporate objectives. They help communicate the strategy and the assigned actions to each collaborator. They help monitor over time the results and the business performance according to objectives. They provide capabilities to retrieve information from various corporate sources.
Yphise analyzed this market for the first time. Previous assessment software reports focused on dashboard management for decision makers, i.e. data consolidation, not strategy management. Today, strategy management is essential at any level of a company, involving not only executives but all company collaborators at various levels. Our requirements focus on the definition and planning of strategies, collaboration management, indicator and dashboard building, data integration and performance monitoring.
Our final shortlist is as follows:
− Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (Cognos);
− Business Objects EPM (Business Objects);
− Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion/Oracle); and
− SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS).
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (Cognos), Version 8.1
Cognos specializes in business intelligence (BI) and corporate performance management (CPM). This demonstrates its commitment to the SPM market segment. The company provides a unified platform, Cognos 8 Business Intelligence. This platform includes various capabilities in BI (reporting, dashboarding, analysis and metrics management, event management or data management) and CPM (scorecarding, planning, budgeting, forecasting or financial consolidation).
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence includes several modules for SPM. Our list of requirements focuses especially on the Cognos Planning module capabilities (financial planning, consolidation, budgeting), Cognos Metric Studio (metrics management, scorecarding, dashboarding) and Cognos Report Studio (analysis, reporting).
Cognos Planning helps in defining the best strategy for implementation conduct and in assessing the resources. Cognos Metric Studio provides capabilities for monitoring various indicators according to objectives. The vendor has announced a new release of Cognos Business Intelligence in mid-2007 (Version 8.2).
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion/Oracle), Version 9.3
Hyperion specializes in business performance management (BPM) software. Its solutions help understand and improve business performance. The vendor provides financial management applications and a business intelligence platform in a single system. This demonstrates vendor’s commitment to the SPM market segment.
Hyperion System 9 includes various modules, in three areas: Applications + (Hyperion System 9 Planning, Workforce Planning, Strategic Finance, Financial Management), BI+ (Hyperion System 9 Interactive Reporting, Financial Reporting, Production Reporting, Enterprise Analytics, Essbase Analytics) and Foundation Services (Hyperion Master Data Management Server, Hyperion System 9 Financial Data Quality Management, Data Integration Management).
Our requirements focus especially on Hyperion System 9 Planning (planning, budgeting, forecasting strategies), Hyperion System 9 Interactive Reporting (reporting, dashboarding), Hyperion System 9 Financial Data Quality Management (collecting, mapping, verifying the data) and Hyperion System 9 Data Integration Management (ETL). Hyperion System 9 was released in September 2005. Version 9.3 was launched in January 2007.
Oracle recently announced the acquisition of Hyperion in order to extend Oracle’s business intelligence product strategy. The objective is to couple Oracle's Business Intelligence (BI) tools and Hyperion’s analytic applications on a performance management system that includes planning, budgeting, consolidation, operational analytics and compliance reporting.
Business Objects EPM (Business Objects), Version XI
Business Objects is specialized in Business Intelligence (BI), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Enterprise Information Management (EII).
Its EPM solution includes various products such as Business Planning (objective definition and planning), BusinessObjects Dashboard Manager (dashboarding), BusinessObjects Scorecarding (definition of key performance metrics) and BusinessObjects Data Integrator (ETL). It provides functions according to the user profile: executive management, financial and operational management, frontline employees. Its solutions are integrated into the Business Objects platform XI.
The vendor improved its offer by the acquisition of complementary companies: SRC in September 2005 (financial planning) and ALG Software in October 2006 (activity-based costing). This demonstrates its commitment to this market segment.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS), Version 9
SAS focuses on the business intelligence market segment with its SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform. Part of this solution is the SAS Financial Intelligence solution. SAS Financial Intelligence includes three products: SAS Strategic Performance Management (strategy management, improvement, monitoring), SAS Financial Management (planning and financial reporting) and SAS Activity Based Management. All the products are independent and complementary.
Our list of requirements focuses especially on SAS Strategic Performance Management. The vendor provides a single solution to conduct and monitor company performance. The solution includes SAS Enterprise Data Integration Server for
13 ©Yphise retrieving and integrating various items of business data into the solution. The solutions are part of the SAS 9 release. A new version is announced for 2007. This demonstrates the vendor’s commitment to this market segment.
Market trends
The shortlisted products are consistent with the major trends in this market segment.
Unified platform
Managing the enterprise performance requires various functions, e.g. planning, simulation, scorecarding, dashboarding, monitoring. Most of the short-listed solutions provide a unified platform to evaluate and monitor performance (financial or operational) and define strategies. They also provide common services for administering and supporting the solution. However, some short-listed products have not yet developed an integrated solution. Future improvements are announced on these points.
Predictive analysis
Predictive analysis functions are needed for managing the enterprise performance and meeting the business objectives. These functions help anticipate future company performance, evaluate the impact of changes and identify points to be improved. Some of the short-listed solutions provide more or less advanced predictive analysis functions combined with strategy monitoring functions. The capacity to anticipate evolution is essential for performance control. Improvements are still required on these points.
Supporting the information transmission
Based on the user profile or the indicators managed, it can be required to quickly access adequate information via various supports. Business users also need to comment easily on indicators or objectives and to save these exchanges. SPM solutions develop various supports to reach information in push mode (such as e-mail, SMS, pop-up). They also set up various systems in order to improve communications and exchanges between business users on a corporate basis (such as forums, document management, messages archiving). Nevertheless, all vendors do not yet have maturity on these points. Improvements are announced on these points.
Controlling the data quality and traceability
To monitor and control performance over time, various data items from several systems must be retrieved in order to populate the indicators. The quality and reliability of this data are crucial. Proper decisions with regard to corporate strategy will be based on this data. SPM solutions provide functions in order to identify how an indicator is built and what the source of the data is. They manage data quality through the use of ETL solutions that can integrate data quality functions. Some of the shortlisted solutions have developed powerful functions for accurately controlling the
data traceability and quality. All the vendors have not reached maturity on these points. Improvements are still required on these points.
15 ©Yphise
Y
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ANKING
SAS Strategic Performance Management
1. DEFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET THE OBJECTIVES
2. IMPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY OF BUSINESS USERS
3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE 4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE
BUSINESS STRATEGY
SAS Strategic Performance Management
Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation
Hyperion System 9
Hyperion System Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation 1. DEFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET
THE OBJECTIVES
2. IMPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY OF BUSINESS USERS
3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE 4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation 1. DEFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET
THE OBJECTIVES
2. IMPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY OF BUSINESS USERS
3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE 4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business Objects EPM
Business Objects EPM Worst evaluation Average evaluation Best evaluation 1. DEFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET
THE OBJECTIVES
2. IMPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY OF BUSINESS USERS
3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE 4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE
BUSINESS STRATEGY
The above charts are presented in order of final top-down ranking of the shortlisted products after their in-depth ISO 9001-certified assessment by Yphise.
The four assessment dimensions show the expected benefits by large companies. They aggregate more than 160 functional or technical control items. This list of requirements is
17 ©Yphise practical, in order to evaluate the capacity of the products to provide an adequate return on investment. It is also proactive in order to appreciate the upcoming perspectives. Comments
The detailed assessment of the shortlisted products demonstrates that the best ones have the strengths that would be useful for large companies and would represent a valuable investment.
The assessment results demonstrate that the shortlisted products are valuable. However, there are significant differences among the products in the coverage of the different assessment dimensions.
We remind you that building a Proof of Concept in the targeted technical environment and for the expected value-added benefits remains a requirement.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) provides the best coverage of our
list of requirements and stands out in all four assessment dimensions. This highlights its maturity and suitability for investing in this market segment. The vendor provides a single, comprehensive solution to define, communicate and monitor strategies, which can be financial or operational ones. The solution includes all the capabilities required for managing the strategies according to corporate or operational objectives. In particular, it provides an easy-to-use and customizable strategic model for defining an overall strategy. The strategy tree structure, the qualification of objectives, and the indicators are entirely customizable. SAS SPM demonstrates usability strengths. The solution can be used to complement two other finance-oriented SAS solutions: SAS Financial Management (financial planning) and SAS Activity Based Management (cost calculation per activity).
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) is an efficient solution for strategy management. The vendor provides a comprehensive solution for managing the strategy lifecycle with various modules : goal setting, modelling, planning, monitoring, analysis, reporting. It especially stands out in two assessment dimensions, where it provides best coverage: "Monitoring the business performance" and "Controlling and improving the business performance". The vendor provides powerful modules in order to populate the indicators with enterprise data from various sources, as well as to track the origin and control the quality of this data. It also provides useful functions for monitoring, searching and displaying the performance information. In particular, the vendor demonstrates valuable strengths in financial strategy management. It provides comprehensive convergent solutions for business intelligence and financial management.
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (Cognos) is a comprehensive solution. It
particularly stands out in "Improving the collaboration and efficiency of business users". It provides comprehensive and customizable dashboards and advanced collaborative functions. It also demonstrates good coverage in "Monitoring the business performance", thanks to its business intelligence capabilities. The vendor bases its performance management strategy on its BI solutions. It demonstrates comprehensive functions for measuring, controlling and managing the reports on
strategies. The solution especially focuses on financial management with specific plan, budget or analysis functions. It also provides interesting impact analysis capabilities.
Business Objects EPM (Business Objects) is a promising solution. The vendor demonstrates a good vision of the SPM market segment. It provides various solutions for defining, managing or monitoring the strategies. It demonstrates good coverage in "Monitoring the business performance" and "Controlling and improving the business performance", thanks to its business intelligence capabilities. Some of the products result from recent acquisitions. The vendor has announced forthcoming integration and improvements of its solutions.
Sorted Aggregated Table
©Yphise1
1. DEFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET THE
OBJECTIVES
Defining and planning accurately the strategic objectivesSelecting the best strategy to meet theobjectives
SAS Strategic Performance Management Hyperion System Business Objects EPM Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
1. D
EFINING THE BEST STRATEGIES TO MEET
THE OBJECTIVES
Companies must define the best strategies in order to meet strategic objectives. A strategy consists of all actions that need to be implemented in order to meet the objectives. This requires accurate definition and planning of strategies. This also requires comparing, simulating and selecting the strategies.
Comments
1.1 Despite significant differences in "Defining and planning accurately the strategic objectives", all the products make it possible to define an overall strategy with business objectives, initiatives and linked indicators. However, there are differences in the capabilities for defining and customizing a comprehensive strategic model and in the qualification of each strategic level with attributes (e.g. deadline, priority of an objective, a project).
1.2 The shortlisted products demonstrate heterogeneous coverage in "Selecting the best strategy to meet the objectives". Some of the products help compare various financial scenarios and evaluate the best one. They do not all allow a comparison of strategic scenarios that include financial and operational objectives. There are significant differences in the ability to identify the best scenario and to qualify it.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) provides the best coverage in the
two assessment dimensions. The solution stands out in "Defining and planning accurately the strategic objectives", as it provides user-defined templates. The strategic models are totally customizable. The hierarchical levels are unlimited, and the product makes it possible to create any kind of element type (e.g. objectives, sub-objectives, indicators) and attributes (e.g. risks, benefits, costs, deadlines, priorities) according to need. Its SPM solution allows calculations for each indicator attribute, by means of a formula field. The vendor also provides standard templates (e.g. balanced scorecard) and vertical solutions geared to compliance objectives (e.g. Basel II, SOX, LOLF, ITIL), operational directions (e.g. IT, HR by countries, marketing) or activity sectors (e.g. banking, insurance, telecommunications, hospital). These solutions provide predefined contents and predefined indicators.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) also demonstrates good coverage in "Selecting the best strategy to meet the objectives". The solution allows a definition and comparison of the various versions of strategic models. The vendor also provides SAS Financial Management, which helps define specific financial scenarios.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) demonstrates homogeneous coverage of the two
assessment dimensions. In "Defining and planning accurately the strategic objectives", the product makes it possible to define a useful strategic model, with objectives and sub-objectives. However, it does not provide customization functions for the model.
21 ©Yphise Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) demonstrates useful features for "Selecting the best strategy to meet the objectives", with its Hyperion Strategic Finance product. This product provides the capacity to define some financial what-if scenarios. It integrates three elements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow) in order to simulate and evaluate scenarios. It provides the ability to define and use various constraints and objectives in the scenarios. Hyperion System 9 9 provides functions for comparing the various scenarios, graphically or by means of tables.
The ranking of Business Objects EPM (Business Objects) in "Selecting the best strategy to meet the objectives" is low. The product provides its Business Objects Planning solution in this area. Business Objects Planning is a financial solution geared to business users. The vendor associates Excel capabilities with database capabilities. It does not require significant support from the IT department. However, it provides only basic functions based on Excel capabilities.
Business Objects EPM (Business Objects) provides otherwise useful features for "Defining and planning accurately the strategic objectives". Its BO Performance Manager product can define accurate and customized strategic models and attributes (e.g. priority, date, related strategy, status, subject, type, roles).
Sorted Aggregated Table
©Yphise2. IMPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND EFFICIENCY
OF BUSINESS USERS
Helping the collaborators define and monitor their strategiesCommunicating the objectives from strategy toexecution
SAS Strategic Performance Management Cognos 8 Business Intelligence
Hyperion System Business Objects EPM
23 ©Yphise
2. I
MPROVING THE COLLABORATION AND
EFFICIENCY OF BUSINESS USERS
Improving the company performance requires involving the collaborators in the strategic objectives. This requires transmitting clearly and easily the individual objectives to the collaborators in line with the strategic objectives. This requires helping the collaborators see and manage their own planning and budgets in order to take into account the strategic objective constraints. This requires control and monitoring assistance at each level (executive, management, employee) of the strategy according to individual objectives.
Comments
2.1 Despite ranking differences in "Communicating the objectives from strategy to execution", all the products help communicate the objectives, projects or tasks to the collaborators. They differ in the processes used. They all support sending e-mails or commenting on dashboards. There are differences in the functions provided for collaborators in terms of understanding their own objectives within the corporate strategy and of monitoring or managing their own budgets and plans in line with the objectives.
2.2 The shortlisted products demonstrate good coverage in "Helping the collaborators define and monitor their strategies". All the products provide dashboards customized to user profile, groups or roles. They all help define a specific indicator matched to a specific objective. There are differences in the ability to manage various indicators according to objectives.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) provides the best coverage in the
two assessment dimensions. It especially stands out in "Helping the collaborators define and monitor their strategies". It provides an easy-to-customize dashboard in order to monitor individual strategies. The vendor provides SAS Portal, a platform that provides Web access to the various SAS solutions, such as SAS SPM. The dashboard can include the predefined template (objectives with projects and tasks), indicators or alert portlets. It can be customized for a business user, a channel or a group (e.g. department, organizational unit).
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) also demonstrates good coverage in "Communicating the objectives from strategy to execution". The solution makes it possible to communicate a message (such as specific initiatives) to a collaborator by e-mail. However, the product does not directly manage the communication of objectives to collaborators. Access for viewing objectives or any kind of element is managed through access rights definition. The product also supports the definition and comprehensive management of comments on each indicator. A comment can include an attached document, recipients can respond, and the exchange is saved and searchable.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) has good coverage in the two assessment dimensions. It especially stands out in "Communicating the objectives from strategy to execution". The product, Hyperion Performance Scorecard, provides the capacity to define owners for each objective or indicator. These owners will automatically receive, on their own dashboards, a list of the objectives or indicators assigned. The product also supports e-mailing.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) also demonstrates good coverage in "Helping the collaborators define and monitor their strategies". The vendor provides Web dashboards accessible with its Workspace solution. It provides out-of-the-box predefined dashboards according to user profiles. The solution provides a graphical wizard in order to select and easily define a dashboard.
Sorted Aggregated Table
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3. MONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
Populating the indicators from any relevant data source Defining the relevant indicators
Hyperion System SAS Strategic Performance Management
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Business Objects EPM
3. M
ONITORING THE BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
Implementing the strategies requires understanding and monitoring the performance level of the company. Monitoring this performance requires defining adequate indicators according to user objectives. It also requires populating the indicators with all the needed data (from internal or external sources).
Comments
3.1 All the shortlisted products demonstrate good coverage in "Defining the relevant indicators". They all provide a capacity to define various indicators in order to monitor the objectives and manage the repository and access rights to these indicators. There are differences in how the solutions define an indicator, in the ability to enter data manually in order to populate an indicator and in the ability to track how an indicator is computed.
3.2. All the shortlisted products demonstrate good coverage in "Populating the indicators from any relevant data source". They all include an ETL solution in order to retrieve data from various corporate information systems and in various formats (e.g. XML, Web services, unstructured data). Some products provide other data integration solutions (such as specific connectors) and support near real-time data capture. There are also some differences in management of data reconciliation and quality before data integration into the solution.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) stands out in the two assessment
dimensions and provides the best coverage in "Defining the relevant indicators". The product includes a rule editor. It is possible to accurately define an indicator with a calculation rule. The rule can includes various measurements and weighting. SAS Strategic Performance Management also helps create comprehensive forms for entering the data manually in order to populate an indicator. Some specific validation processes can be defined. The product also provides various functions aimed at helping the user enter data (e.g. reference values).
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) demonstrates strong coverage in "Populating the indicators from any relevant data source". The vendor provides an ETL, SAS Data Integration Studio, in order to populate its SPM solution. The ETL provides an ability to manage reconciliation, matching or data quality operations.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) stands out in the two assessment dimensions and provides the best coverage in "Populating the indicators from any relevant data source". The vendor provides three specific solutions for importing the data: Hyperion Data Integration Management (ETL, from Informatica), Hyperion FDM (for financial data, business user-oriented) and Data Load Rules (to retrieve and transform any kind of file). The vendor also provides connectors in order to retrieve into its Workspace portal data from WebSphere, Sharepoint, Java, API, Web services or XML. It allows the
27 ©Yphise retrieval of data in batch or near real time. The ETL can carry out reconciliation, matching or data quality operations. The vendor also provides Hyperion Financial Data Quality Management, which allows a definition of reconciliation and matching operations, especially in the area of financial data.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) also stands out in "Defining the relevant indicators". The vendor offers a formula editor that defines indicators according to various measurements (provided by the ETL). The indicators can combine the data of several other indicators. The weight of these various indicators can be balanced, even if the values managed by these indicators are not the same (e.g. revenue, number of marketing campaigns). Hyperion Performance Scorecard also makes it possible to identify, for each indicator, the owner, the data source, the score formula and the result frequency. The vendor also provides comprehensive audit functions with its FDM (Financial Data Quality Management) solution.
Sorted Aggregated Table
©Yphise4. CONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE BUSINESS
STRATEGY
Analyzing the performanceMeasuring the progress according to theobjectives
Hyperion System SAS Strategic Performance Management
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Business Objects EPM
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4. C
ONTROLLING AND IMPROVING THE
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Improving the performance requires controlling the business strategy over time. This is essential in order to identify progress made on the objectives. It also helps highlight any weakness or problem and provides the capacity to reevaluate the strategies. This requires functions aimed at analyzing the performance.
Comments
4.1 Despite significant differences in "Measuring the progress according to the objectives", all the products make it possible to identify the progress or trend on each indicators according to a target value. They all manage thresholds on indicators and alerts. There are differences in the ability to manage delays involving the objectives or to define accurate, individual thresholds.
4.2 The shortlisted products demonstrate good coverage in "Analyzing the performance". All the products provide filtering functions or search engine in order to find information. They all help define accurate reports. There are ranking differences in the ability to display information in various supports (ex. Office solutions, PDAs) and to help reevaluate a strategy. The products do not all provide an analysis of the impact between indicators in order to manage the changes; they do not all provide predictive analysis of the indicators and strategies.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) stands out in the two assessment
dimensions and provides the best coverage in "Measuring the progress according to the objectives". The product provides the ability to identify the progress of each element (objective, project or task) according to a customized reference value (ex. target, past value). Indicator trends can be also customized according to need, by means of a formula field. The trend can be calculated according to a previous value or to a target value, for example. The solution allows an accurate of definition of thresholds for the indicators. It is possible to define various thresholds on strategy levels (ex. indicators, objectives, initiatives) according to numeric or character values. The product helps define an overall threshold for a group and a personal threshold (according to business user). It can also define thresholds according to time periods.
SAS Strategic Performance Management (SAS) also provides useful features for "Analyzing the performance". In particular, the product provides advanced predictive analysis functions. To complement SAS SPM, the vendor provides its SAS ETS (Econometrics and Time Series) solution. This provides the ability to perform predictive analysis (what-if scenarios) aimed at improving the strategies and performance.
Hyperion System 9 (Hyperion) stands out in the two assessment dimensions and provides the best coverage in "Analyzing the performance". The vendor provides
advanced and comprehensive functions aimed at searching and displaying the information. For example, it manages a "point of view" function, which is the ability to keep all the filters defined by a user. Its Hyperion Smart Search solution, resulting from cooperation with Google, provides the capacity to index information from the various enterprise systems (e.g. MDM). Its Smart View product also provides full integration into Microsoft solutions (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) in order to display information. The data is accessible directly and can be refresh automatically. The vendor has announced Hyperion Smart Space for 2007. This product will can it possible to obtain KPIs and pushed alerts without opening the Hyperion solution. It will also provide advanced collaboration functions. Lastly, Hyperion provides impact analysis functions between indicators and objectives, through its Hyperion Performance Scorecard product.
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (Cognos) demonstrates strong coverage in
"Analyzing the performance". The vendor provides powerful functions in the areas of search, reporting, or information display. For search, Cognos 8 provides various products and functions in order to define searches, filters or specific reports (Query Studio, Report Studio, Cognos 8 Go! Search integrated into IBM OmniFind Yahoo! Edition). Cognos 8 Go! Search helps define a search from unstructured information such as documents, images, audio, video and e-mails. For information display, the vendor provides in particular Cognos 8 Go! Mobile, a solution for mobile workers who require wireless access to information.
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